All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
personal, topographical

No, I'm Not Ashamed

As a result of the current “little local difficulties” being experienced in London (see, for example, here) there are a lot of people around saying they are ashamed to be Londoners.

But I’m not one of them.

Yes, I’m a Londoner. But I’ve never been ashamed to be a Londoner. Because I’ve never been proud to be a Londoner. I’ve always known that London is, under a thin surface veneer, crap. And I have never understood why anyone would have any interest in, or get any enjoyment from, the place despite all it’s interesting history (which I love).

London is crap. It always has been. And likely always will be. All that’s happening now is that it is living up (down?) to it’s true nature. And this is a nature which is probably that of many large cities.

That is not to condone what is happening in the smallest iota. I wish it wasn’t thus. Probably we all wish it wasn’t thus. But it isn’t. Shit happens. Always has. Always will. The best we can hope for is that some semblance of the rule of law returns and we’re allowed to back to being crap in our own, relatively peaceful way.

I recall some proverb about leopards and their spots.

Plus ça change!

memes, personal, photography

[32/52] Rainbow

[32/52] Rainbow by kcm76
[32/52] Rainbow, a photo by kcm76 on Flickr.

Week 32 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

Rainbow seen this evening from our study window. When Noreen first drew my attention to it, it was very bright, almost a complete arc with a second fainter rainbow outside it. By the time I got a camera on it, leaning out the window, it was beginning to fade. Still it looks like someone in the next street has a crock of gold for a TV set.

memes, natural history, quotes, science

Word of the Week

Hoatzin

A species of colourful, remarkably saurian, chicken-like bird, Opisthocomus hoazin, found in swamps, riverine forest and mangrove of the Amazon and the Orinoco deltas of South America. It is notable for having chicks that possess claws on two of their wing digits; the chicks are also able to swim and climb — useful when you’re a pheasant-sized bird which nests in trees over water!

It is brown in colour, with paler underparts and an unfeathered blue face with maroon eyes; its head is topped by a spiky, rufous crest. The Hoatzin is herbivorous and has an unusual digestive system with an enlarged crop used for fermentation of vegetable matter — broadly analogous to the digestive system of mammalian ruminants. It’s common name of Stinkbird is due to the strong smell produced by the bird, perhaps due to its consumption and fermentation of leaves.

Despite its striking plumage, unwary nature and poor flight it seems to be only rarely hunted by the indigenous peoples of its native range. Consequently it is not endangered. It is the national bird of Guyana.

amusements

More Auction Oddities

Another collection of oddities from the catalogue of our local auctioneers. Not such an interesting-looking sale this time around but as so often it’s a combination of the curious descriptions and the odd juxtaposition of items in the lots which amuses.

First off, who is sitting on whom? …

A boy in a Tyrolean hat holding a monkey seated on a step with three dogs, by W A Richards, signed, oils, gilt framed … and a vacant picture frame.

A shelf full of interesting items including a barometer, binoculars, a model economiser invented by Robert Sterling 1816, a bondage mask, games, etc.

An I.C.A.N. calibration gauge for airspeed corrections, a whisky flask, a Turkish coffee pot, binoculars, and an old camera.

A set of Diplomatic costume by Moss Bros, early 20th century, including frock coats, trousers, boots, bicorn hat and sword, the etched blade marked Scott Son & Claxton, 31 George Street, Hanover Square, London, in original tin carrying box.

6 glass demijohns and a set of golf clubs.

A quantity of garden tools, a Pogo stick, a signed copy of ‘Double or Nothing’ by Thelma Frye, 3 LG mobile telephones and 2 shelves of miscellaneous items, ornaments, miniature coffee cups, a desk blotter, magazine rack, vases, miniature pictures, hand mirror, carriage clock, knick-knacks, etc.

One is left wondering “Why?”.

amusements, medical, pleasures, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week

Here’s this week’s usual eclectic and eccentric mix …

Biologists and philosophers have pondered for generations the ways in which our modern lives may be disconnected from our pasts, out of synch … When you look beside you in bed, you notice no more than one animal (alternative lifestyles and cats notwithstanding). For nearly all of our history, our beds and lives were shared by multitudes.
[Rob Dunn, The Wild Life of Our Bodies]

The moment that made us human in that series of happenings was not the language, the gods, or even the ability to draw Rubenesque women in stone. It was when we decided that when a leopard stalked the cave, we ought to go after it and kill it. When we decided to kill a species not for food or in self-defence, but instead in order to control what lived and did not live around us, when we did that, we were then fully human.
[Rob Dunn, The Wild Life of Our Bodies]

Grasses and cows were not the only species we favored. We also came to choose species that were beautiful to our senses … tulips and other flowers are shipped around the world at huge expense. Goldfish live in houses in nearly every country. Dogs, which appeal to our social sense of appeasement and connectedness, were brought into our beds. (Cats – well, no one can explain them.)
[Rob Dunn, The Wild Life of Our Bodies]

Anyone offering subtitles for the following?

[It’s] amazing how the secondary endosymbiosis has left its signature in the topography of plastid membranes like in dinoflagellates and cryptophytes.
[“fer” in a comment at The Loom]

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.
[GK Chesterton]

There are more fools in the world than there are people.
[Heinrich Heine]

Is it true that cannibals don’t eat clowns because they taste funny?
[Thoughts of Angel]

memes, personal, photography

[31/52] Mother at Nearly 96

[31/52] Mother at Nearly 96 by kcm76
[31/52] Mother at Nearly 96, a photo by kcm76 on Flickr.

Week 31 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

This is my mother who will be is 96 in October enjoying the summer in the gardens of her care home yesterday. She spends quite a bit of time just sitting quietly under the trees watching the wildlife; apparently in the Spring there were hares running around the lawns quite oblivious to her presence. OK she’s very frail and needs a zimmer frame, but she’s mentally all with it and can still draw and paint and read. And although she’s very deaf with her hearing aids she can still hear the birdsong.

And yes, that’s Noreen in the background who will be 60 also in October.

memes, quotes

Word of the Week

1 Comment

OK, sorry, there’s been somewhat of a hiatus here. Mainly because I had a major computer malfunction last Wednesday evening — basically a dead Windows installation that refused to repair. Luckily all the data was safe and I have a laptop which kept the essential functions running, but I’ve had to build a new system from Ground Zero. Anyway we seem to be back fully on the air now.

So without more ado, here’s this week’s word:

Hecatomb.

Originally in Ancient Greece a sacrifice to the gods of 100 cattle but extended as early as Homer to mean a great public sacrifice. Thus also a sacrifice of many victims; a great number of persons, animals, or things, presented as an offering, or devoted to destruction.

amusements, beliefs, books, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

The usual eclectic and kleptological collection this week …

Blunt common sense is valued above Gauloise-wreathed nuances of gossip about concepts.
[AC Grayling, The Form of Things]

Religion is false but the masses should be encouraged to believe it; it keeps them in order.
[Plato quoted in AC Grayling, The Form of Things]

Harvester of maidenheads
[Description of the second Earl of Rochester, circa 1660, quoted in AC Grayling, The Form of Things]

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
[Bertrand Russell]

… and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
[Friedrich Nietzsche]

I like prime numbers … I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your lifetime thinking about them.
[Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time]

The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
[Thomas Carlyle]

Long range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.
[Peter F Drucker]

Life begins at 40 — but so do fallen arches, rheumatism, faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person, three or four times.
[Helen Rowland]

If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
[Anon]

natural history, personal, photography, science

Skills I Do Not Have, No. 253 of 44975

Common Wasp, Vespula vulgaris by kcm76
Common Wasp, Vespula vulgaris, a photo by kcm76 on Flickr.

I present you with the Common Wasp, Vespula vulgaris.

I found this critter dead on the bedroom floor this morning and in picking it up for recycling I realised just what stunning creatures wasps are. We so often think of them a nuisanceful pests whereas they’re amazingly engineered and even in death almost beautiful. So I had to photograph it – click the links below for larger views.

Image 1 (top left) shows just how hairy they are when we think of them as bald. And you can just see the tiny, shiny bulge of the top of the wasp’s compound eye.
Image 2 (top right) shows some of the mazing engineering: just look at the hooks and barbs on the legs – just what is needed for gripping caterpillar/insect prey and crawling over plants.
Image 3 (bottom left) shows the face and jaws which are the characteristics that identify this as Vespula vulgaris rather than any of the other UK species.
Image 4 shows something I’d never realised before (although my book shows it clearly) and that’s that wasps have two pairs of wings: look carefully and you can see in front of the large main wing a smaller wing. No wonder they’re such skilled flyers.

These are tiny, amazingly delicate yet robust insects. This individual, a worker, is just 12mm long with a wingspan of about 22mm. In her lifetime she may well have “salvaged” numerous flies, caterpillars etc. as food for the next generation of grubs – without wasps we would be knee deep in creepy crawlies.

This was taken under my desk lamp (hence the slight colour cast) with my point-an-shoot Lumic TZ8 – which is amazing for macros like this as it will focus down to just a couple of centimetres (much better than my dSLR)!

And as I was taking these I thought: how the hell do you go about dissecting something this small? Clearly scientists have done so, but it’s a skill I don’t have and I’m not dexterous enough to ever conceive how to do it! Amazing insects and amazing scientific work to dissect one!

Montage created with fd’s Flickr Toys